'I have to be really strong, and my clients have to be strong about how they do it.'Īddicts who encounter the games on their own, without the sort of guidance Lawrence offers, may not have that strength.īrett said gambling apps shouldn't be so pervasive, particularly because they make it harder for him and other gambling addicts to stay clean. 'I look at it in terms that I am a gambling addict, and that if I start purchasing credits online, that would be the end of me, and I would just struggle from there,' Lawrence said.

Lawrence trains his clients to pick games where there aren't continual pop-ups for buyable extras, saying they can trigger the addiction. Still, the freemium model presents a challenge. 'It gives them that little bit of adrenaline rush and helps control their addiction and modify their behavior,' says Lawrence, who spends up to two hours a day on Slotomania himself. Tony Lawrence, a 58-year-old recovering gambling addict, and a counselor at the Aboriginal Gambling Help Service in Adelaide, Australia, says he's used social casino games as a teaching tool for himself and his clients. Though games might feed addiction for some, they can help manage it for others. 'It's about the individuals that kind of have that kind of obsessive aspect in their own personality.' 'It's not the games themselves that are addictive,' said Andrew Pedersen, senior vice president and general manager of social casinos for the cable channel Game Show Network, whose GSN Games division makes casino apps for smartphones. For more information, visit or follow Zynga on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the Zynga blog.Game makers have struck deals with celebrities and popular brands to help increase their profile. Founded in 2007, Zynga is headquartered in California with locations in North America, Europe and Asia.

With Chartboost, a leading mobile advertising and monetization platform, Zynga is an industry-leading next-generation platform with the ability to optimize programmatic advertising and yields at scale.

With massive global reach in more than 175 countries and regions, Zynga has a diverse portfolio of popular game franchises that have been downloaded more than four billion times on mobile including CSR Racing™, Empires & Puzzles™, FarmVille™, Golf Rival™, Hair Challenge™, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells™, High Heels!™, Merge Dragons!™, Merge Magic!™, Toon Blast™, Toy Blast™, Words With Friends™ and Zynga Poker™. Zynga is a global leader in interactive entertainment with a mission to connect the world through games and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

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